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About this project

What is Teagueduino?

Teagueduino is an open source electronic board and interface that allows you to realize creative ideas without soldering or knowing how to code, while teaching you the ropes of programming and embedded development (like arduino). Teagueduino is designed to help you discover your inner techno-geek and embrace the awesomeness of making things in realtime — even if you’ve only ever programmed your VCR.

Make

Teagueduino makes making things really simple.

Want to build a light-controlled alarm clock? A harmonic music generator or a light that changes color based on temperature? How about a magnetic field meter or a robotic frog? These are just a few of the things that have been created so far, and with integrated project sharing you can always share your work or see the latest things being built as you go!

Just plug in a sensor to one of the input ports (for example, a knob), hook up an output device (a speaker, perhaps?), and use the awesomely simple Teagueduino user interface to make it work (a single line of code can map the knob's rotation to a musical tone on the speaker)! And since everything changes in realtime, there's no waiting for things to compile or the device to reset.

Learn

Beginners can jump in without needing to know how to solder or write code. Of course, there's still lots of room to grow and we're working hard to make the transition to more advanced topics as easy as possible.

For those interested in learning how to work with electronics, there will be step-by-step tutorials for wiring up custom sensors and outputs. If writing software is more your thing, there will be arduino project templates to help you migrate to working directly in C. And for the truly advanced, the main control board (Teensy++) can be popped off the the Teagueduino board for full-out embedded development.

Teach

Teagueduino makes teaching engaging and exploratory.

Conceptually, we've built everything from the ground up to support a low floor (very easy to get started), wide walls (lots of things you can do), and a high ceiling (capable of very advanced projects as needs grow).

Teachers can browse projects in related fields to get ideas about where to start and build interactive models and experiments in realtime with students to increase understanding. Teach the basics of programming and hardware development, or use Teagueduino as a tool to teach others topics (math, physics, biology, interactive art, cooking, automation, and more...) you want to bring to life!

Technical Details

Each board has 5 inputs and 5 outputs, and a full kit comes with a variety of each (knobs, buttons, speakers, lights, servos, and more). These can be easily combined in countless ways and programmed using the Teagueduino software and then shared with the community to use and build on.

Why Kickstarter? Why $160?

We think Kickstarter is a great way to bring Teagueduino to life because it focuses on getting the community involved from day one.

Making an ecosystem of boards and software is expensive. To bring the price down, we need to reach a minimum production budget and make Teagueduino at a larger scale than we have so far. Our goal of $22k ensures that we'll be able to produce kits with a variety of components that make creating things fun right out of the box.

While less expensive than similar electronic platforms like LEGO Mindstorms NXT ($260), Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer ($250), and Pico Cricket ($300), we also know that $160 is not cheap. Teagueduino's price reflects the quality of components used and the fair labor practices we will insist on employing for production. We're pre-selling Teagueduino at-cost; we genuinely want to help bring the Teagueduino community to life and empower more people to make awesome things!

Teagueduino so far

We've built a small set of Teagueduino kits (~10) to explore, debug, and try out with our lucky beta-testers. Here's a glimpse of what's been happening so far!

FAQ

All of the Teagueduino code, schematics, and PCB files will be made open to the public upon meeting our goal. The software will be licensed under the GNU GPL, and everything else will be under Creative Commons Attribution / Share-alike.

We believe that a whole variety of people will be able to use Teagueduino for all kinds of things. We've held two beta workshops so far and had participants from a variety of fields: teachers, artists, industrial designers, interaction designers, game developers, prototypers, musicians, biologists, students, tinkerers, hackers, and hobbyists, just to name a few.

Rewards

You selected

Pledge $10 or more

38 backers

Get a Teagueduino sticker and credit on the community website as a backer.

Estimated delivery:Nov 2011

You selected

Pledge $160 or more

151 backers

A fully assembled Teagueduino kit. No soldering required, ready to make things right out of the box. Just plug it in and go. You'll also get some stickers and a credit on the website. (for international shipping, add $15)

Estimated delivery:Nov 2011

You selected

Pledge $260 or more

167 backers

Extra I/O! If the basic kit isn't enough for you this option gets you everything in the regular Teagueduino kit, plus limited edition additional input/outputs for more complex projects. Like what? Well, things like lasers, sweet launch switches, and joysticks! Oh, and of course you'll get some stickers and a credit on the website. (for international shipping, add $15)

Estimated delivery:Nov 2011

You selected

Pledge $650 or more

10 backers

Have lots of friends? Work in a creative office? The Teagueduino Workshop Suite is for you:
5 fully assembled Teagueduino boards, 4 input/output sets, and 3 servo bundles. All the tinkering fun you could possibly want for your next brainstorming session / boring meeting / bachelor party / quinceañera. (for international shipping, add $15)